Education Budget 2023: IIM Grant Reduced by Half, Top B Schools said – Center is Showing signs of self-reliance

Education Budget 2023: The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), which are among the country’s renowned business schools, have faced budget cuts this year as the Center has halved their grants. However, top institutes feel that the move may harm new IIMs, but not second or first generation IIMs.

There are 20 IIMs across the country.

In the Budget for 2023-24 announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday, funding for IIMs has been reduced from Rs 608.23 crore to Rs 300 crore in the Revised Estimates (RE) of the previous financial year, a decline of 50.67 per cent. When the net budget for the financial year 2023-24 for the higher education sector increased by 8 percent to Rs 44,094 crore.

As per the Education Budget 2023 Estimates (BE) of 2022-23, an amount of Rs 653.92 crore was allocated to IIMs.

According to Ashok Banerjee, director of IIM Udaipur, the government may send a signal to IIMs to be more innovative in funding their development plans.

“The cut in budget allocation for IIMs may hurt the new IIMs, though the latest one is about seven years old,” Banerjee said.

However, through this cut, the government would perhaps encourage the leadership of individual IIMs to promote the use of PPP model and encourage the industry to be more innovative in funding its development plans to support educational institutions of national importance through CSR initiatives and others donations,” he said.

As per RE for 2022-23 the allocation for this purpose was Rs 296.81 crore while BE allocation was Rs 323.50 crore. For the new financial year (2023-24), the allocation under the head has been reduced to Rs 15.17 crore.

“IIM Rohtak has never depended on any government grant. We generate our total revenue from various training programs distance and on campus and tuition fees. Though we are a second generation IIM, lack of funds will not affect us. The new generation IIMs probably have to depend on government grants,” said Dheeraj Sharma, director, IIM Rohtak.

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